Name: tb29552 Date: 11/18/97


Submitter of this Incident modified java/lang/Object.java as follows:

In a copy of java/lang/Object.java, add the
default constructor method containing a
call to super(), as follows:

   public Object () {
      super();
   }

Attempt to compile the file and get the exception

java.lang.NullPointerException
        at sun.tools.tree.MethodExpression.checkValue(MethodExpression.java:72)
        at sun.tools.tree.MethodExpression.check(MethodExpression.java:340)
        at sun.tools.tree.ExpressionStatement.check(ExpressionStatement.java:46)
        at sun.tools.tree.Statement.checkBlockStatement(Statement.java:120)
        at sun.tools.tree.CompoundStatement.check(CompoundStatement.java:70)
        at sun.tools.tree.Statement.checkMethod(Statement.java:98)
        at sun.tools.javac.SourceField.check(SourceField.java:402)
        at sun.tools.javac.SourceClass.checkFields(SourceClass.java:852)
        at sun.tools.javac.SourceClass.checkInternal(SourceClass.java:615)
        at sun.tools.javac.SourceClass.check(SourceClass.java:566)
        at sun.tools.javac.Main.compile(Main.java:318)
        at sun.tools.javac.Main.main(Main.java:473)

The Object class has no superclass, so constructor
chaining can't work. But it ought to fail gracefully.
(Review ID: 14418)
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